In the 2014-2020 period, on the one hand, there is a need to ensure continuity with what was already achieved with the 2007-2013 programme, making the most of positive experiences, including methodological ones, in order to complete the processes already underway. On the other hand, there is a need to introduce innovation profiles that allow a qualitative leap from the past to be made.

In accordance with the objectives set out in the Europe 2020 Strategy (which includes a Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion and a Social Investment Package) and the National Operational Inclusion Programme, the implementation of active inclusion-oriented interventions requires a joint effort by all European Structural and Investment Funds. 

In particular, with the ESF, the Apulia Region aims to reduce poverty and social exclusion through social innovation, to increase employability and participation in the labour market, through integrated and multidimensional pathways of active inclusion of the most vulnerable people (victims of violence or severe exploitation and at risk of discrimination). 
The ESF will also be used to finance measures to improve the provision of social services, including innovative services, for the benefit of people in difficulty, with a view to a process of taking charge that is not merely welfare but provides a path of active inclusion, which promotes reintegration into employment, a key factor for inclusion for the most disadvantaged, in line with the Recommendation of 3 October 2008 of the European Commission.